CAUSE rOK THE OKIGIN OF THE TRADITION OF THE FLOOD. 273 



of Lyons of 1,300 feet, -whilst in the great upper valleys of the 

 Hhine and Danube it reaches an altitude of l,oOO feet, which 

 is even exceeded further to the east. It likewise covers 

 the high plains of Hungary and Southern Russia. Various 

 theories have been proposed to account for this wide 

 dispersion of the Loess, the principal of which attribute its 

 formation : — 1. To a depression of Central Europe whereby 

 the gradient of the upper valleys was greatly reduced, while 

 no change of level occurred nearer the sea.* 2. To the ad- 

 vance of the great northern ice sheet, blocking the large 

 rivers of Central Europe, and damming back their waters, 

 and so flooding the land.t 3. To high winds acting upon 

 disintegrated rock surfaces.! There are grave objections, 

 which 1 have specified in the papers before referred to, to all 

 these views. Such an accumulation of silt would, howcA^er, 

 necessarily be one of the consequences of the submergence 

 suggested. It is such a sedimentation as would tall from the 

 turbid waters as they sh)wly advanced or rested, whilst as 

 they retreated those portions of the sediment most exposed 

 to the efilueut currents would again be swept away, and 

 spread over lower levels. And in this case, as in those of the 

 other phases of the Rubble-drift, the organic remains of this 

 Loess are those of the Quaternary land fauna living in the 

 respective districts at the time of the inundation, and include 

 in several instances the remains of Man. It tells therefore 

 the same tale as the Angtdar Rubble and " HeacV 



The Ossiferovs Breccias of the Continent. — FRANCE. On 

 some of the hill slopes in inland parts of France and again 

 on the face of the precipitous hills on the coast near Mentone, 

 there are masses of angular debris of local origin containing 

 the remains of extinct Quaternary Mammalia with occasional 

 traces of the works of Man. The same rubble masks some 

 of the celebrated bone-caves of Belgium, and forms sIojdcs 

 covering the cave-beds at their entrance. 



It is, however, where this rubble has been swept into Fissm'es 

 and Cavities that it is best preserved and presents the most 

 interesting features. As before mentioned, a few such fissures, 

 occasionally ossiferous, occur in the Hmestone rocks around 

 Plymouth, but they are more common on the Mediterranean 



* Lyell, Antiquity of Man., p. 383. 



t Belt, Quart. Jonrn. Gtol. i<oc., vol, xxx, p. 490. 



\ Eiehthofen, Geol. Mag. for 188:2. 



